Cii Radio| Ayesha Ismail| 20 December 2016| 20 Rabi ul Awal 1438
A businessman from Heidelberg in Gauteng has opened a case against two men after a man “spewing racist hatred toward Indian and Muslim people” poured alcohol over him and the group he was travelling with, and head-butted him on a bus.
Dorsany Mukhtar said while on a bus trip back from Magaliesburg to Heidelberg, two Afrikaans-speaking men, who were apparently intoxicated, started singing offensive songs with references to the Indian community.
Mukhtar was on the trip with about 15 staff members and relatives.
“These men were singing derogatory songs, calling people ‘coolie’ but we ignored it.”
Mukhtar said the situation escalated when one of the men doused them with alcohol, which is prohibited for Muslims.
“He even took some of his alcohol and mixed it with our soft drinks in our cooler box.
“When he took a six pack of our drinks from the cooler box, I finally had had enough. I confronted him. He head-butted me and I lost my balance and almost fell out of the bus,” he said.
Trip in celebration of peace
Mukhtar said on returning to Heidelberg he opened a case of assault against the men.
Police at the Heidelberg police station were on Monday not able to respond to a News24 query about the incident.
“It’s not so much that he assaulted me, but that he humiliated me and my religion. I was attacked in front of my staff. It was a traumatic experience,” Mukhtar said.
He had planned the trip for his staff to celebrate peaceful resistance activist Mahatma Gandhi.
“The irony is that we wanted to celebrate a man who stood for peace and Reconciliation Day, but I was assaulted by someone spewing racist hatred toward Indian and Muslim people,” he said.
Trip organiser Bouwie Wiersma said he was appalled by the incident.
“He just went over the top. His aggressive behaviour was provoked by his intoxication. It was an isolated incident. It still [shows] we haven’t moved on,” he said
Source – news 24
